Beta Programs

[MerscomMan]

I wanted to see if anyone had experience with the beta programs of portals. For an upcoming release, we have been asked to enter a major portal's beta program rather than a regular release. Our game has already been accepted by most of the other portals and before we committed to a beta I wanted to see other people's experience. Although I am confident the game will do well, I am concerned that people can get it for free through the beta and it will thus hurt sales via the other portals.

[tretmike]

I wanted to see if anyone had experience with the beta programs of portals. For an upcoming release, we have been asked to enter a major portal's beta program rather than a regular release. Our game has already been accepted by most of the other portals and before we committed to a beta I wanted to see other people's experience. Although I am confident the game will do well, I am concerned that people can get it for free through the beta and it will thus hurt sales via the other portals.

As I know many portals use not full, but one-hour trial version for beta program. So, I don't think that this hurt sales of your game.

[Snooker]

True, Michael.

MerscomMan - you could also consider including a time limit on the beta build, if the portal will allow it. We're starting to tell our devs to put a 3-week hard stop on their beta builds, as a little additional protection against your concerns.

[MerscomMan]

True, Michael.

MerscomMan - you could also consider including a time limit on the beta build, if the portal will allow it. We're starting to tell our devs to put a 3-week hard stop on their beta builds, as a little additional protection against your concerns.

How does your beta program work? Do people download for free and based on downloads you see if it gets moved to RealArcade or are they providing more feedback on the actual game?

[Snooker]

How does your beta program work? Do people download for free and based on downloads you see if it gets moved to RealArcade or are they providing more feedback on the actual game?
We do use the eval program to give us guidance on games we're on the fence about. If we think it might have good success with our service but we're not completely certain, we'll let the eval results guide our decision.

However, we put every game we release into our evaluation program prior to it releasing on the live service. We use our evaluators to find blocking bugs (such as crashes or hardware compatibility issues), provide feedback through comments and Q&A, and as an predictor of retail success. If you are a distributed (or "non-exclusive" or "3rd party") developer, we share the bug reports with you. If you are a published ("exclusive", "2nd party") developer, we also will share feedback with you.